Give Thanks for Cheese!

Why not add a little extra flavor to your Thanksgiving meal with some tasty cheeses!

Mashed Potatoes & Bellweather Farms Creme Fraiche

After mashing up your favorite tater recipe, mix in a few dollops of Creme Fraiche at the end.  Unlike gloopy sour cream, which can make your potatoes like a bucket of warm wallpaper paste, creme fraiche is lighter in texture and flavor.  The result will be velvety mashers with just a slight tang.

Green Beans & Emmi Cave Aged Gruyere

Instead of smothering your tender green beans in a french fried onion casserole, lightly saute them in olive oil, then toss in some shredded Cave Aged Gruyere.  It adds a nutty pop that's perfect for the cozy fall weather.  Be sure that it's aged gruyere too, otherwise you're just getting a boring ol' Swiss.  This also works for slightly caramelized brussel sprouts - yummy!

Cornbread Stuffing & Wisconsin 3-Year Aged Cheddar

Regular cornbread is pretty tasty topped with melted cheddar, so why not your stuffing?  The Wisconsin 3-Year Aged Cheddar had a nice sharp bite and melts evenly.  If you're baking in your bird, mix in the shredded cheddar with the stuffing before hand.  If your baking your stuffing in a separate dish, shred a layer of cheddar over the top.  Finish it off under the broiler for a minute or two to get a golden brown crust.

Apples or Pears with Point Reyes Blue Cheese

Here's a fantastic fall salad - crisp sliced apples or pears, toasted pecans and a sprinkling of Point Reyes Blue Cheese.  This blue crumbles well but is creamy on palate.  Plus, it doesn't have a strong acidic punch that many strong blues have.  Drizzle with a little honey and a couple squeezes of lemon juice, and you have sweet salty salad bliss!

Pumpkin Pie & BelGioiso Mascarpone

I love my pumpkin pie topped with billowy clouds of whipped cream, but if you're looking for something a bit more decadent, try a spoonful of Mascarpone on top.  Sweeten with a little sugar and cinnamon for an extra special treat.

Apple Pie & Ford Farm Coastal Cheddar

The Pelican Inn at Muir Beach serves the most delicious apple crisp with slices of sharp English cheddar, and it is fabulous!  So do yourself a favor - instead of topping that slice a warm apple pie with a blob of vanilla ice cream, serve it with small cuts of Ford Farm Coastal Cheddar.  This dry, sharp, salty cheese will cut through the sugary caramelized apple goodness.  It's truly a heavenly pair!

Cheese N' Sweet of the Week: Stracapra and La Panzanella Sweet Cinnamon Crisps

I am not a big fan of goat cheese.  I usually find it too gamey and barnyardy, but that's just me.  So when I find a goat cheese that I fall for, it must be really flipping awesome!  Stracapra, a semi-soft washed rind goat's milk cheese from Italy, has stolen my heart...for the time being.  It's made in a Tallegio style (another one of my favorites), formed in an 8-inch block, about 2 inches thick and washed in a brine while it's aged.  The result is not your typical pinky-orange rind, but a thin whitish-gray mold that encases a snow white paste.  Initially, the flavor is gamey, but it quickly turns to fresh salted butter with a hint of nuttiness at the end.  It's meaty and creamy on the palate, and the rind adds a desirable earthiness that shouldn't be ignored, even for rind haters.

This week's sweet is a package of La Panzanella Sweet Cinnamon Crisps.  Made in Washington, these crispy whole wheat flatbreads are sprinkled with a layer of cinnamon and turbinado sugar for a touch of sweetness and sparkle.  The texture is thin and crispy without being too delicate. They're perfect for breakfast or coffee in the morning, or a nice accompaniment for a creamy, mild breakfast cheese.  I like them because they're not over sugary, but satisfy that sudden sweet-tooth craving.

Cheese Abominations

A while back, a friend of mine Facebook posted one of the most vile recipes I have ever seen - Peanut Butter Cheese Fudge, courtesy of Paula Dean. After we Facebooked our disgust, I thought to myself, why does America continue to bastardize cheese? Just when things were starting to look up. Family run artisan dairies. Eclectic cheese and wine pairings. Additions of cheese courses after dessert. Sheep's milk. Then here comes Paula, dragging us back into the 1950's. And it's the 50's I blame for inhibiting America's cheese growth; this decade of cheap convenience and extended shelf lives.

We were given Velveeta, an artificially yellowed block of plasticine able to withstand a nuclear holocaust. And Cheez Whiz, it's liquified counterpart. Then there's spray cheese, for those who are too inept to handle a butter knife. Rubbery Squares of hermetically sealed Kraft Singles. Bags of shredded orangeness dusted with non-caking agents. Flavored spreads filled with guar or xanthan gum stabilizers. All of these fall under the category of Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food...if you want to call it food. And why? Because there's not enough cheese in the product for it to be technically labeled as cheese.

It is a daily battle of mine, convincing people (particularly those from older generations) to put down the "product" and pick up real cheese.  It's just better for the body.  People wonder why new food allergies have popped up, why obesity and diabetes have exploded within the population, why food borne illnesses are becoming more prevalent...it's because of our processing.  Nearly everything we eat goes through some sort of process, whether it's to keep bugs away or enhance it's edible desirability.  The result being a society raised on large amounts of fake food and accepting it as the norm.

The idea of going to your local market and simply shopping for tonight's dinner has become a novelty in America.  Farmer's Markets are events, not community staples.  It's all about how much you can get for spending as little as possible, which has made places like Target, Walmart and Costco thrive.  Don't get me wrong, Costco is great for things like socks and toilet paper, but not for food.

I have a regular customer who bought a huge chunk of Cambozola at Costco because it was cheaper there than buying it from me.  Financially understandable, but then she asked me why that Cambozola she bought was hard and chalky, while mine was smooth and creamy.  The answer is in the process.  Costco cheeses are bought in pallet deals, meaning the distributor cuts them a break for buying large amounts at a given time.  Because they're purchasing so much, the cheese is delivered before it's had a chance to ripen properly.  Sometimes it's even frozen (a big no no), which turns the aging process into the rotting process. So, you may get a great deal on a giant piece of cheese, but the quality will be severely lacking.  I told my customer to wrap the cheese in wax paper, leave it in a dry, cool part of her refrigerator, and hope that it will ripen with a little time.  Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this did not work and she had to throw out the cheese.  She then told me when it comes to cheese, she will always purchase it from me.  It may cost more, but at least she'll be able to eat it!

So, there is hope.  Consumers are starting to read labels and question what ingredients are being added to their foods.  Despite the downturn of the economy, people are trying to buy fresh and local, even though it can be more costly and you may not yield as much.  But I feel this is a case where less really is more.  It has forced some manufacturers to discontinue using fillers such as hydrogenated soybean oil and high fructose corn syrup, even though it's for marketing purposes and not health reasons.  People are also falling in love with "organic", "local", "green", and "slow moving" foods, which is a great step in the right direction, but it's really just advertising for what is essentially the way food used to be.  Don't ask if it's "organic"...ask if it's real.